Identity itself is a profound matter that all an individual carries from their ancestors which shows their origin, culture, tradition, etc. I do have my identity which is vivid and prevailing on me physically and mentally. My family’s’ composition is Mongolian, Nepali, Buddhist, Middle-class. Mongolian is the origin of my ancestors where they came from the main characterise of Mongolian people are Small eyes, flat nose and short height. Besides I am a Nepali from Nepal.
Figure 1: The Shangri-La where I was born
My family live in Northern corner in mountainous region of Nepal a village called ‘Humla’, it is also known as gateway of ‘Mount Kailas’ in Tibet, China. I have seven members in my family consists of grandparents, parents and three siblings including me. Currently my family is bit scattered, my grandparents and parents stay in village but my younger brother and sister live in capital with my relatives and I am here in Malaysia in way of doing my Bachelor. My mother is house wife and my father is farmer but some time work as a tourist guide during the tourist season between the months of June to September. I am the most elder child of my parents. I am the eldest child in my family. There are several aspects that made me who I am today. My family has had a huge influence in my life, but the biggest, most influential part of me is my faith in God.
Talking about my country Nepal, it is a small country with the territory of 1, 47,881 km lies between two big countries China and India. There are mainly two races in my country as Mongolian origin and Aryan origin. Nepal was known as Hindu Kingdom after 2006 it is known as a secular country and it is fully “religious tolerance”. The majority of population follow Hindu religion and minority of people follow Buddhist, Christen and Muslim within in small territory. Due to its huge diversified land division, people living in the various regions in different ethnic groups follow their own way of religious practice, lifestyle, language, culture and tradition with ever peace of harmony in society.
Figure 2: blessing through song during weeding ceremony
Furthermore, Buddhist can go to Hindu temple and also Hindu can go to Buddhist monastery without any hindrances. Buddhist worship Buddha as a god and also Hindu count Buddha as one of the reincarnation of lord Vishnu. However, unsustainable political party is the main problem of Nepal but the best thing about my country for me is that there is not any record of religious conflict in Nepal yet that makes country internally rich and peace although the physical part of my country is still under the poverty line.
Eventually, I and my family follow Buddhist religion. The main things that my religions teach us are to develop inner peace, patience, love and compassion among each other including all creatures of the world. Under the Buddhist there are so many sub cast and we are known as ‘Nyinba Lama’ community in Nepal. We use our own native language, national language and Nepali is our second language. Generally, role of male is to work outside of house and female is to do house hold but we do not have any fix rules regarding the roles male and female they are free to change their role and profession. Mainly in our culture, when we meet our elderly people, we bow down and touch our head together and during the wedding ceremonies, our elder people give us blessings through singing songs and putting butter on our head. We welcome our guest by serving special traditional wine Called ‘Chayang’ in native language.
We use our culture attire during occasions and it is called ‘Bakhu’ made up of thick woollen handmade materials. Moreover, In our culture we keep a flag with five colours in each house. It is because we believe that once the flag moves by wind it will bring best wishes and luck in our home. We also believe that night time guest in village or in house are the messenger of god and we provide good service for them. I still follow all these belief and norms that are practice in our culture. Most important, as being a Buddhist, I truly believe in ‘Karma’ which means you will get what you give whether it is good or bad.
However throughout my life, I have been exposed to diverse religion and culture. I was born in Buddhist family; I pass my primary level in Buddhist school. After grade seven I moved to south part of the country and passed high school in Hindus School where majority of friends and teachers are Hindu but without any hindrances and problem I pass five years of my life in Hindu community. Finally I am doing my Bachelor program in Malaysia where the majority of my friends in university are Muslim. I had an opportunity to learn about other culture and religion besides my native culture and religion. Based on my experience I can say that objective of all religion is same to bring inner and outer peace in you, to bring the feelings of love and compassion among each other regard less of any religion, sex, culture, and colour. Sorry to say that we all human being are misusing the teaching of all religion on the name of following religion and also on the name of competitive development. Hope may god give strength to the followers of all religion to follow the teaching of their religion in real life rather than praying. Most important is that I got chance to lean about other religion, culture practically without reading bulky books about culture and religion within the four corner of room and I am continuing to grow and expand myself in many ways to learn about other religion , culture and tradition.
Finally, all of these things make up the culture, tradition and identity that I am part of; Mongolian, Nepali, Buddhist, middle-class. I want to improve if there is any weakness and I will try to maintain the good about my culture and identity. To do so I cannot change my past but I want to do good ‘karma’ in my present that will help to make my future safe and brighter as I strongly believe that present is the result of past and future is the result of present.